The aptly named Human_Error tour is over, and we’ve finally had some time to catch our collective breath. Here is the saga.

The Human_Error Tour Must Have Errors

Loading the van

Error_1 The first job was to find some decent transportation. At one point, we were actually seriously considering installing a hitch on a Prius. But luckily we were able to borrow a Subaru Outback from some very dear family. Once we had the trailer loaded, which is an understatement since the trailer was twice the size of what we needed, the car would not shift out of park. I was thinking, Oh great, we’re not even going to be able to get on the road. But luckily Justin knew how to override the shifting mechanism and get us in gear. Things were getting very, very real.

Who is Justin? Why, he is our Touring Bassist, playlist dj, and Mechanic! The Joe Stuhff that we all know and love, is busy getting the Father of the Year Award for 2011. In fact his whole family was upgrading to some nicer diggs around the time of this tour. No more view of the Space Needle, but who needs that anyway when you get to give your youngest child a real bedroom? Joe is our hero. So is Justin, who Saved The Day several times. More on that later.

Error_2 We got lucky in the past by borrowing projectors so that we could show off Josh’s heartfelt and epic visual display. Yet no unlucky sap would volunteer for the tour. So we stopped off at Fry’s to grab a good projector at a good value (an Acer). The salesperson was extremely helpful. He loaded us down with a ton of accessories. Later, we would discover that the projector came with all the same accessories. This would become the first set of returns we would need to make after the tour. More on this later. After a sandwich and a smoothy, we loaded the car with a pallette of water, our new projector, and 4 fancy lads–and hit the open road for Portland.

Dearest friends, it is the year 2011.

Yet, we do not have personalized human cloning that would enable Hidden Number clones to live in your attic and come down to perform the songs from our hit record, Human_Error, for you at your every whim. This is why we have organized for the original, non-cloned band members to leave the Magnet Large & Small dungeon and recording studio–to make a sojourn southward from Seattle, down through the open expanses of Oregon valleys and passes, and then back again. The band must gain these experiences so that we can properly train our future clones.

We were pretty surprised and excited about the turnout at the record release back in May. After 4 long and hard years, it was the culmination of a new state of mind for us. We spent that time getting our new band member Josh up to speed and focusing on new material that brought out the strengths of the new lineup. Josh contributed a bunch of melodic guitar parts, while Dean spent time on expressing with his voice exactly what the new paradigm of lyrics demanded. Joe and Kai worked out some super tight rhythm parts to lay a foundation. Then we iterated over all the songs again and again. Honing, building, distilling. I think we were aiming to inject more expression into the music. We didn’t use any sequencing on the parts, and kept it all live. Together, our souls are very turbulent, and over those 4 years we had a lot of ups and downs in our personal lives and with each other while locked in the same room for hours. And that’s what went into the music. So, at the record release, it was pretty rewarding to look out at a packed Comet and realize that this was the moment it was all leading to. We had to inspire. And we heard from folks that it might have been our best performance to date. I felt like we were all in the band together that night, everyone in the room. Yet it was only for those few in Seattle who could make it, and the moment was fleeting.

The Tour

Hidden Number 2011 Human_Error Tour Dates of 2011

PORTLAND, OR – Thursday, August 4, 2011 – @ Slabtown

EUGENE, OR – Friday, August 5, 2011 – @ The Black Forest

MEDFORD, OR – Saturday, August 6, 2011 – @ Johnny B’s

SEATTLE – Friday, August 12, 2011 – @ The Blue Moon Tavern

In today’s democratized music business, the only rare thing is performance. All the recordings are free. We can consult the oracle whenever we please. Yet, we still cannot be together. So, we want to come and meet you and play some music and hang out. That is the 2011 Hidden Number Human_Error Tour of 2011. Head over to our music site to hear all the songs for free in advance, get a free download, and read some of Dean’s inspiring lyrics.

You can also find out about all the bands we’ll be playing with. First, and foremost Warning: Danger! With these guys rocking, we can all sleep soundly at night. Other bands: Dartgun and the Vignettes, John Wesley Coleman III, Rayon Beach, Los Other Phux, and BioLuminescent Sea Witches. Head over to ReverbNation to listen to most of these bands.

QR Code for Hidden Number Mobile Site

Hidden Number Mobile

We are trying to keep our mobile site up to date so that you can have some useful information on the day of the show, on your mobile device. One easy way to visit the site from your phone, is to scan the code that will take you there.

Keep in Touch

We’ll try to update everyone on the progress. You can keep in touch on our facebook page, or through Twitter. Follow @DeanAlanSwanson or @kaiweb.

What’s New

We just created a YouTube channel, and have been posting some videos that feature exerpts from the Human_Error record release performance. We’re going to try to repeat this performance at every stop on the tour, so now you know what to expect!

I should also note that we have a bass player filling in for us while on tour–Justin. He’s rad. More on him later. Meanwhile, Joe is moving to a new home with his family and is a top contender for the #1 Dad award on so many levels. It’s a shame we cannot clone him for the tour. And yet, Justin has somehow managed to learn all the songs in record time with a smile on his face–despite at least 4 different emergencies (at least). This guy is a hard worker, and it’s hard to keep up with his creativity. It’s important that you meet him to know what I mean.

What’s your favorite invention of the current future of today? What do you want to know about Justin? What info should we post while on the road? Anything we left out? Let us know…

*UPDATE* You can get all the info on your phone, including driving directions, on our mobile site.

You can help us pay our up-front bills if you pre-order a record now from our website. We have a few deals for those into collectibles, consumables, and containers. Then you can just pick up the record at the show.

It’s going to be a special night, and we would love to be with you. The sun should be shining, and we will be playing the entire album live to an amazing set of visuals created by Josh.

More about the Human Error album:

It’s full of stars.

Shawn Diaz, a one-time guitarist and singer in the band, is back again as the designer.

Chris Unruh‘s magnificant artwork graces the cover. You might recognize him from some of our previous show flyers.

There’s some action over at the Hidden Number facebook page, regarding Dean’s sleeping habits. Equations and graphs are involved, and there is some boiling contraversy boiling for real.

Last night we did some final bounce downs to send over to the overseer of mastering. Feeling great about this go-round, and really proud to be delivering a new record next year on vinyl as is deserved. We’ll put together some kind of fancy pre-sale package once our art is delivered and we can properly show you what’s what.

In the meantime, Dean and Josh are working on a music video for David Lynch, filmed on the Seattle streets. No guarantees that he’ll actually use it, but he’ll see it and then we’ll see if he takes it from there. Good practice for future HN videos, ya think? Of course, we have no problem with anyone making videos to our tunes willy nilly, if anyone’s interested.

~~ UPDATE ~~ Please take a look at the video and vote for it if you like it. We need help spreading the word, and are very grateful for all the votes and comments so far! With everyone’s help, Josh will be set to win!

But the puzzle quiz over on fb was so fun, that we’re going to do some more, and maybe offer some prizes next time. We’ll see. Any quiz puzzle question ideas to offer?

We submit for your approval, a new song full of otherworldly delights. Hitherforeto, is our most recently written song, though there are more that are yet to be released.

This could be considered to be a song that Josh contributed to the most significantly to date, and also the song where we see Josh first reaching his full creative momentum in the band since he joined 2 years ago. As mentioned in previous posts, we’re very happy for his contributions of creativity and fudge squares. On a personal note, these are some of my favorite lyrics. Dean toiled over those guilded words, and then toiled even further in his laboratory, mixing the tracks down and making our backing vocals sound human. Many of the songs we have been posting lately will appear in an upcoming vinyl release.

We hope you enjoy, and please let us know what you think about this song!

to become a male model in Florida. We reformed and are now called Strandskov, Stuhff, and Swanson. Keep an eye out for our upcoming new album, “The Sun is Not Fun”, featuring the track “Go Suck on an Orange.” We want to thank all our fans for the increased support now that he’s out of the picture.

We just wanted to alert the intertubes that our new song “(we’ll never be) friends 4EvR” is ready for realtime streaming and gushing pleasures. Spread the word! This is an early pre-master version, recorded at our favorite studio Magnets Large & Small, but we want to start getting these in people’s hands asap. It’s been 2 years, right? Additionally, you can find this song on iLike, Facebook, sonicbids, and (eventually) our main website [links to all of these are down at the very bottom of this blog].

This song is influenced by the usual amount of dread and loathing that we live in fear of, as usual. Also note the use of Dean’s theramin, and the first major appearence of Josh in a Hidden Number recording. Here is a picture by our friend, Winslow, as illustration.

(we'll never be) friends 4EvR

So what do you think? Do you like the direction we’re headed with this arrangement?